Some vendors and dealers offer credit accounts where you can charge purchases directly and pay them off later. Common examples include:
John Deere Financial multi-use accounts (parts, service, and equipment)
Co-op accounts (feed, seed, fertilizer, and chemicals)
Supply / material store credit accounts
These are different from a line of credit where you draw cash into your checking account. With a dealer or vendor credit account, you're typically making purchases directly on the account. This article explains how to set one up and manage it in Ambrook, and this video walks through the steps as well.
Walk through setting up and managing this type of account with Katie.
These types of accounts typically don't sync transactions through a bank connection. We recommend setting up a manual account and entering transactions from your monthly statement.
Step 1: Create a manual account
Navigate to Accounts and click New Account.
Select Other Current Liability as the account type.
Enter the opening date as the date you're starting your books in Ambrook, or the date you opened the credit account—whichever was more recent.
Enter the balance you owed on the account as of that date, if any.
Step 2: Record purchases made on the account
When you buy parts, supplies, or equipment on your credit account, create a manual transaction on the account for each purchase — or one transaction per month for the total from your statement.
Go to the Ledger -> New -> Transaction.
Select your credit account as the account.
Enter the amount and date of the purchase.
Tag the transaction as the appropriate expense category (e.g., Repairs & Maintenance, Supplies, Feed).
You can enter one transaction per purchase, or log one total transaction per month at statement time—whichever works best for your operation. Just make sure the total matches your statement.
If your transactions are for different types of expenses, it might be easier to enter them separately rather than trying to split the total into multiple expense categories.
Step 3: Record payments
How you record payments depends on how you paid and whether interest was charged.
If the payment came from your bank account (principal only)
Find the payment on the Ledger.
Categorize it as a Liability Adjustment.
Select your credit account when prompted.
If the payment came from your bank account and includes interest
Find the payment on your Ledger.
Click the three dots on the right side of the payment and select Add Line Items.
Add a line for Principal and a line for Interest with the corresponding amounts.
Categorize the principal line as a Liability Adjustment to your credit account.
Categorize the interest line as a Non-Mortgage Interest expense.
See Tagging Loan and Mortgage Payments for a detailed walkthrough of splitting principal and interest.
If income went directly to paying down the account
Sometimes income, like crop sales, goes directly to paying down your credit account instead of being deposited into your checking account. In that case, if there was no interest component to the payment:
Click New -> Transaction from the Ledger.
Select your credit account and add the payment amount.
Categorize the payment as whatever type of income it was. For example, if grain sale proceeds went directly to paying down the line, tag it as Grain Income.
If there is a principal and interest component, it may be easier to create a journal entry:
Navigate to Ledger and click New → Journal Entry.
Debit the credit account by however much principal you paid down.
Debit the Non-Mortgage Interest expense category by however much interest you paid.
Credit the income account for the full amount of the deposit.
We recommend reviewing this account once a month when you get your statement to make sure all transactions and payments are represented. When you're up to date, the balance of the liability account on the Accounts page should equal the principal balance you owe on that account according to your statements! You can verify any discrepancies by reconciling the account.